Flames threaten nearby town of Quillon, as Torres del Paine blaze is brought under control. More than 604 people have been left homeless, 162 homes destroyed and one man killed since a massive fire began on Saturday in the southern Bío-Bío Region, 280 miles south of Santiago.

A week since fire began, 80 percent of national park declared safe for tourists to return. The world-famous Torres del Paine National Park in far southern Chilean reopened to the public on Wednesday, according to President Sebastián Piñera, despite large wildfires on park grounds that are still not fully contained.

Chile is the country best prepared to face the economic deceleration, according to credit rating organization Standard and Poor’s (S&P). In an interview with El Mercurio, Jane Eddy and Regina Nunes, directors of S&P’s Latin America and the South Cone divisions, explained that while South America as a continent is doing well economically, Chile stands above the rest in its financial stability and ability to face the world crisis.

Last Thursday President Sebastián Piñera turned to technocrat Harald Beyer to help steer the Ministry of Education into safer waters, after Felipe Bulnes resigned for “personal reasons.” Beyer is the third person to assume the role of Education Minister since Piñera took office in March 2010 and succeeds Felipe Bulnes, who in turn took over the post from Joaquín Lavín amid fierce student protests last July.

As a reporter for The Santiago Times for the four months in 2012, I had the opportunity of attending many of the marches and protests in the capital here in Chile. These are a few photos from May 1 which is International Workers’ Day worldwide. The march, a family event, started off peacefully but soon […] Read more

Never has Chile’s population been so vocal about what it wants. Every day, in the country’s capital, in Aysén, and now up in Calama, social movements continue demanding their rights. Impeding these rights in every direction, critics say, is Chile’s political system. Shrouded within the very fabric of this system, lies the remains of Gen. Augusto Pinochet’s most infamous legacy: Chile’s 1980 Constitution.